SiteRond

While designing a website, it is important to understand and keep the audience profile in mind.  Younger people are not interested in content and put more emphasis on graphics and videos.

Though most webmasters feel it is mandatory,  I  do not use graphics and photographs on my website unless it is required.  One of the reasons, is that I had a slow internet connection and the graphics would greatly increase the time taken to open a particular webpage.

Till a few years ago,  for designing a basic website, some  web design and HTML skills were needed or a website designer had to be hired.   However, increasingly website owners are designing the website themselves using  tools like website builders

Many of the website builders available today have a free version which can be used for building personal websites.  For  commercial users, an enhanced version is available on payment of a fixed fee, though some website builders charge users for annual upgrades.

Other free website builders are integrated with web hosting. The web hosting companies bundle it  with the web hosting package and the website builder is not available separately.

Different types of software are used for designing a website, depending on the complexity and type of the website

Notepad

Microsoft Frontpage

Microsoft Publisher

CoffeeCup HTML Editor

Dreamweaver 8 - Used to code your site, free trial version available
Dreamweaver CS3(Dreamweaver 9)

Photoshop CS2 - for photos, images, modifying images

Fireworks 8 - Have never used, believe also 2d manipulation and style creation software

Flash 8 - For creating flash animation

GIMP - open source software for animation

Before starting web design, it is advisable to learn HTML. Basic HTML skills can be learnt quickly and there are many  tutorials available to get you started.

Some of the online guides for HTML are :
W3schools - has video tutorials which can be useful
HTMLgoodies
WebMonkey
The online guides start from basic coding  and then move on to more advanced web design.

Code for a website can also be written using notepad. Compared to web publishing tools, it is usually more difficult to write HTML code from scratch and it usually takes a longer time for the  same type of website. However handcoded  websites usually do not contain bloated code and load quickly. Once a person learns to write HTML code, it becomes easier to make modifications in existing websites.